Last night while channel surfing I had the misfortune of catching a few minutes of Scarborough Country on MSNBC. The good news was that Scarborough wasn�€™t on. The bad news was that Pat Buchanan was guest-hosting.

Even more appalling, Buchanan was interviewing Randall Terry. And the two of them were clucking like a couple of old hens about how awful it was that the state of Florida would permit a 13-year-old girl to have an abortion.

As I watched, I half expected them to sprout Taliban-style kufis on their heads and threaten to stone women seen in public without veils.

The 13-year-old, identified as �€œL.G.�€� in news stories, became pregnant while in the care of the Florida Department of Children & Families. So what was the DCF doing while it was not supervising L.G.? Here�€™s a clue�€”

State investigators found no signs that Terri Schiavo was being abused during several inquiries from 2001 to 2004, according to records released Friday.

The Florida Department of Children & Families logged 89 complaints over those years that claimed Schiavo, who resided in a hospice in Pinellas Park, had a variety of problems caused by abuse, including bed sores, suspicious needle marks and broken bones.

In response to the claims, department investigators made unannounced visits to the hospice. They concluded that Schiavo was in good condition, given her circumstances.

89 complaints? If the Florida DCF had put half the time and resources into supervising L.G. that they put into �€œsaving�€� Terri Schiavo, maybe the child wouldn�€™t have gotten pregnant.

Although Gov. Jeb Bush has surrendered to the court, Mark Kleiman congratulates him for his firm stand in favor of rapists�€™ rights.

The Governor’s insistence that rapists receive the full reproductive advantage of their crimes isn’t limited to statutory rape. Last year, Jeb asked the courts to appoint a guardian for the fetus of a developmentally-disabled woman (with an estimated mental age of 1 year) who had been raped in a group home.

I’ve said some rude things about Gov. Bush in the past. But his willingness to speak out for the interests of the most despised segments of the population — rapists and child molesters — suggests that a mind of truly sweeping compassion lurks behind that smug, self-satisfied face.

Buchanan and Terry, the two wombless creatures on MSNBC, made noises about the emotional and physical dangers abortion poses for L.G., but failed to bring up the greater dangers of pregnancy and childbirth (particularly considering a 13-year-old�€™s immature pelvic structure) or the fact that even adult women who wish to be mothers can sink into postpartum depression. And I can�€™t even imagine how gut-wrenching it must be to carry a baby to term and then give it away. But none of this occurred to the MSNBC Talibani.

A few days ago I wrote on my blog,

A thirteen-year-old is considered too young to make the decision to have sex in most states, so seems to me this child is the victim of statutory rape. Isn’t rape supposed to be one of the exceptions most anti-choicers are willing to make? Guess not.

And, speaking of rape, I say that the continued use of this child’s body against her will is an extension of rape, and the judge, the whole dadblamed state of Florida, and any other mouth-breathing twit who agrees with the judge are no better than rapists.

On second thought, forget “no better than”; they ARE rapists. And child rapists, at that.

Some readers objected to this. A couple of them complained that the adjective dadblamed was inadequate and I should have used something stronger. But one thought it was over the top to equate blocking an abortion with rape.

I don�€™t think so. Both rape and coerced pregnancy are about controlling women and using a woman�€™s body against her will. Both send the message that women are less than human. The only difference is that in one the trauma is sudden and violent, and in the other it is drawn out over a long period of time.

Speaking of trauma�€”I clicked back to MSNBC later in the Scarborough program and caught Buchanan interviewing Ted Nugent about long-distance hunting using computers. This program should be renamed The Scarborough (and Friends) Freak Show.